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Cynthia Cleveland
Morality and Unity
The moral question of slavery is one that throughout
history has been an incredibly divisive issue. This particular divisiveness or
passivity towards morality is certainly a complex issue with which Henry David
Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln address directly. It comes down to the simple idea
that if we cannot collectively, whether on a small or a large scale, find
resolution one way or the other, progress cannot be possible. Thoreau’s approach
is much more extreme and seeks to force the government into action through the
will of the people, whereas Lincoln appeals to the concept of unity of the
states for the greater good.
Henry David Thoreau’s “Resistance
to Civil Government” deals heavily in the concept of human morality. The
question of slavery and the Mexican war are his primary examples of how
America’s moral compass falls under severe scrutiny. What is most concerning in
Thoreau’s denunciation of these moral dilemmas is his call for a better system
of government, in which such morally questionable acts should not be looked upon
with such indifference. Thoreau likens the American system of government to that
of a corporation, in which he expounds that “a corporation has no conscience;
but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.” This
particular piece is referencing the fact that many of the politicians who serve
the American government, have been serving for entirely too long and, perhaps,
have a more personally vested interests to serve than the greater good: Thoreau
says it best here: “After
all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the
people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not
because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest
to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest.”
From this point it is easy to see that Thoreau is making a larger point
concerning financial gain over making decisions out of conscience. Thoreau
remarks on this that “opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred
thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers
here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in
humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost
what it may.” It highlights the moral predicament in which the institution of
slavery continues to thrive; in a society in which the financial gain to be had
far outweighs the virtue of human decency and morality. If the majority are
staunch in their position to continue “sitting upon another man’s shoulders”
then the only logical course of action would be to resist that which the
government benefits from: taxes.
Thoreau likens the American government to a machine and the only way to oppose
that machine is to drive at the financial gain that supports it, that being
taxes. Thoreau remarks that in refusing to pay taxes “if one honest man, in this
State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from
the co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be
the abolition of slavery in America.” That is, if any free and honest man find
himself locked up it would be to the detriment of that state. Thoreau’s
reasoning on this measure is fairly apt, though I think it would take more than
just “one honest man” to have made any great effect. Rather his idea was to
invoke the sympathies of the masses to “break the law” and clog the jails in
protest—if it had been proven to work on a massive scale it may have been
successful.
Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand
addresses the “care-not” attitude towards deciding where the United States’
moral conscience lies regarding the matter of slavery. Of course, the subject of
this speech mainly speaks on the divided nature of the country at the time, but
it is carried by the distinct idea that the nation should “cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing, or all the other.” He points to the case of Dred
Scott, in which there exists a sort of constitutional and moral ambiguity
regarding the situation of owning a slave in a free state if that slave was
rightfully acquire in a slave state. It is this particular issue that his “House
Divided” metaphor is most important. If the American people cannot collectively
agree on one or the other then it makes the potential for progress incredibly
difficult. Rather, he suggests that if one decision may be made in one direction
or the other, then we may proceed more readily.
Lincoln’s approach to reason is much
more neutral in comparison to Thoreau’s ideas of Civil Disobedience. Thoreau
suggests that Americans should rather act against the government to enact change
within our society. Whereas Lincoln suggests that a unification of the states
would push our progress towards one final destination or the other. These
notions of change stand in stark contrast to one another as Thoreau urges
divisiveness between state and man in order to gain the attention of the
individual conscience that he finds lacking. Both have an echo of truth within
them and may be combined to come to a logical course of action. In order to come
to a moral decision regarding slavery, it is important that the people engage
their sense of right and wrong to make their voices heard—via Thoreau’s passive
resistance—perhaps to the effect that Lincoln wishes to achieve, by joining
states in a solid resolve, together in conscience rather than arguing in
constant opposition. Either way, both writers seem to come to the same
conclusion, that unification of ideas or conscience are crucial to enacting any
sort of change—whether on a small scale for Thoreau (individualism and the
state) or on a large scale for Lincoln (federal government).
